Parolee who robbed businesses at gunpoint sentenced to 25 years

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SAN DIEGO — A parolee who used a gun to hold up six people at three San Diego businesses was sentenced Friday to 25 years in state prison.

William Littrice, 25, pleaded guilty in January to six counts of robbery and one count of being a felon in possession of a gun. The defendant also admitted a 2010 armed robbery conviction.

Deputy District Attorney James Koerber said Littrice had been on parole for eight to 10 months when he robbed two people at the Living Room coffee shop in San Diego on Feb. 11, 2017.

Littrice fled with $1,000 in that robbery, Koerber said.

A week later, on Feb. 18, 2017, Littrice waved a gun around and confronted three employees at Woodstock Pizza, ordering one to clean out a safe, Koerber said. Littrice got away with $1,150 in that robbery, the prosecutor said.

On April 4, 2017, Littrice pointed a gun at a 7-Eleven clerk and stole $240, according to the prosecutor.

“You pointed a gun in my face,” the victim wrote in a letter to the defendant read in court by Koerber. “This is a memory I cannot erase.”

Koerber said Littrice also robbed a taco shop as a juvenile and fired a BB gun at a woman with a baby.

Deputy Public Defender Jenerra Crenshaw told Judge Michael Groch that Littrice had been in the criminal justice system since the age of 12 and needed psychotherapy, not long periods of time behind bars.

Crenshaw argued unsuccessfully for 12 years in prison. She said Littrice would be less of a risk to re-offend when he got out.

The motivation behind Littrice’s most recent crimes was so he could provide for himself and his daughter, Crenshaw told the judge.

Groch said the crimes were aggravated even though Littrice’s gun was technically not loaded because the ammunition shells were put in backward.